WordPress web design

WordPress web design

Move to WordPress

Move to WordPress

WooCommerce web design

WooCommerce web design

WordPress optimisation

WordPress optimisation

WordPress consultants

We work as WordPress Consultants, helping you to plan your website to make it as effective as it can be.

Someone once said ‘You Don’t Have to Know Everything. You Just Have to Know Where to Find It‘ and this statement is very true when it comes to WordPress.

One of the most awesome things about WordPress as a CMS is its ability to be what you need it to be, but every day we talk to clients have something far removed from this.

Sure, they’ve a nice, shiny new site, but when you come to use it things don’t seem quite as they should.

Consultancy comes first.

If you’re talking to a web agency or freelancer about a new website, the first thing they should be asking you is ‘what is wrong with the current site‘. This should also be followed up with a few pertinent questions along the lines of:

What is it you want the new site to do?

What is it about the old site that doesn’t work? (bear in mind that unless your current site is badly designed, a new design won’t always fix any problems).

How many visits and conversions are you getting from the current site?

How many keywords are you ranking for?

What are your main calls to action?

What are the user journeys through the site?

Are you using landing pages and on-page calls to action to increase conversion rates?

And so on (there are a lot)

There are two types of WordPress project. Designing and building a new site (whether you currently have one or not) and optimising an existing site. This is where using WordPress consultants can be very helpful in helping you to plan things properly.

Make sure your WordPress consultant know’s their stuff.

Some people think that subscribing to a few WP blogs and watching some YouTube how-to videos makes them a WordPress expert.

We’ve helped a lot of people who thought they were getting expertise and experience but were, in fact, working with a ‘middle-man’ who knew very little about anything and outsourced everything.

A recipe for disaster. Always check the following.

Who will be doing the planning, wireframing and AI?

Who will be doing the design and creative work?

Who will be doing the development work?

Will all the on-page SEO be done and what about ongoing SEO?

Where are these people based and how often have you worked with them?

Are they a collection of freelancers or an agency?

Can I talk to them directly? (this depends on the size of the project – for smaller sites, direct contact with the designers and developers often makes for a smoother project)

Can I see some live examples of their work?

Can I speak to clients you’ve done this for?

What are the arrangements once the site has gone live; who do I go to for support and are there support options in place?

Who owns the site once all the bills are paid?

Can I see your terms and conditions?

One of WordPress’ great strengths can sometimes be the cause of many a second-rate website. It’s very easy to get a site live quickly with WordPress.

This is perfect for many smaller companies and start-ups.

For very little expenditure, you can get a site live, with your content in there and your colleagues and WordPress consultant all saying how great it looks.

The reality here is that if all the additional work over and above the design and content has not been done, your site is dead in the water. Six months from now you’ll be wondering why you don’t rank in the search engines and why you’ve had so little business from the site.

Your WordPress consultant has also stopped returning your calls.

An effective website costs £1000s, not £100s.

WordPress consultants should also advise you that you just can’t get an effective, optimised site for peanuts. Designing and building a site that wins you new customers should take time and cost a sensible amount.

This is an investment in your business, not a cost.

Our sites start at £5000 because that’s the rock-bottom cost of designing, building and optimising a basic website. We do other work, such as site audits and optimisation that may come in under that, but if you’re talking to a WordPress consultant about a new site and the figures they are coming back to you with are significantly less, you should hear alarm bells.

Planning and research take time to do properly.

Initial wireframes and design concepts will be sub-par if they are rushed

Cheap often also means a badly hacked off-the-shelf theme that the developers butcher into something new for you

Content takes time to edit and optimise

Testing and snagging are crucial stages that can often go through several rounds

SEO (the crucial bit) takes time to do properly

So where do you find everything that you’re looking for?

At Toast, we do everything in-house.

From the research stages (finding out exactly what you’re looking to achieve) through to the SEO research, planning, creative and eventual build, we do it all under one roof.

What’s more, we have teams of people that work on specific stages of the project. SEO experts, creative designers and dilligent developers.

We work on projects together, not in silos, so each and every member of the team at Toast has a very good understanding of what everyone else does.

WordPress consultancy comes as part of the standard project, and we have the experience and expertise across the three floors of our studio to provide you with all the other services you need.